. The Russian road to China . oment from every chimney the black smoke rollupwards, then dwindle to a thin gray streak. Eachwoman has risen and heaped green wood into thecooking-oven. It is as if one will actuated simul-taneously all the people. At places the master of the house has a trade,shoemaking or saddlery, and the big living-roomis littered with pieces of leather and waxed cord ashe stitches. Sometimes there are hunters in thefamily, and ancient flintlock muskets rest on theantlered trophies. The men gather together oc-casionally to drive deer. But in general, as the win-ter is the men
. The Russian road to China . oment from every chimney the black smoke rollupwards, then dwindle to a thin gray streak. Eachwoman has risen and heaped green wood into thecooking-oven. It is as if one will actuated simul-taneously all the people. At places the master of the house has a trade,shoemaking or saddlery, and the big living-roomis littered with pieces of leather and waxed cord ashe stitches. Sometimes there are hunters in thefamily, and ancient flintlock muskets rest on theantlered trophies. The men gather together oc-casionally to drive deer. But in general, as the win-ter is the mens idle time, a little wood is cut, thecattle are seen to, and for the rest, talk, tea, andtobacco, until it is time to eat and sleep once women on the other hand seem to be alwaysoccupied, but they are not discontented. The customs and institutions which bind togetherthe household group are unique. In all families theHazan is supreme. To him first of all, strangers paytheir respects. To him every member of the house-. VILLAGE STOREKEEPER SIBERIAN TYPKs SLEDGING IN TRANSBAIKALIA 137 hold comes for advice as to whom he or she shallmarry, and which calf shall be sold. Howsoeverhard of hearing he may be, there is related to himall the events of the neighborhood with infiniteminuteness. He is the repository of all moneysearned by logging for a neighboring mine-owner, orfor bringing out to the railroad the sledge-loads ofrye. As head of the family he can summon a forty-year-old son from the merchants counter in Kras-noyarsk, or his nephew from the fur-traffic in Irkutsk,and bid him return to his peasant hut. If a grand-son wishes to go to Nerchinsk to seek his fortune,the old ones consent must be obtained before theyouth receives his passport. It is all at the patri-archs sovereign pleasure. We come one day upon a vexatious example ofthis ancestral authority. A report reaches us, bychance, of a hibernating bears hole some fifty verstsaway, which one of the peasants has locat
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjecttranssi, bookyear1910
